By Lawani Mikairu

FORMER workers of Nigeria Airways have protested the delay in the payment of their over N78 billion severance benefits that have been approved by the federal government. According to the protesters the amount was approved by President Muhammadu Buhari over a year ago.

Nigerian Airways grounded

The ex workers who defied the early morning rains on September 13, pleaded with the President to compel the Ministries of Transportation and Finance to expedite action on the disbursement. They displayed placards with inscriptions such  ”President Buhari, please prevail on the Ministry of Transportation to release the money to us”, “No national carrier takes off without our pension”, “In month of August, we lost 25 pensioners, “Honourable Minister, please help us, our members are dying daily”.

The ex-workers under the on the platform of Aviation Union Grand Alliance, AUGA, and National Union of Pensioners, NUP, marched through the Nigeria Air Force base to the domestic wing of the Lagos airport, a distance of ten kilometres. A staff of the defunct airline, Mr. Olumide Ayokunle said the demonstration was necessary to ensure their entitlements were paid as promised by the government.

Promise

He also said the government had promised to make the payment of the severance packages of the former workers a top priority, but wondered why the same government was yet to fulfill its promise over two years after taking over from the previous government.

Ayokunle explained that no fewer than 500 members of staff of the airline had lost their lives in various avoidable circumstances since the airline was liquidated in 2003, saying that previous government also promised to ensure the payment of their benefits, but nothing tangible was achieved.

According to him: ‘The protest is necessary for us to remind the government that we are still alive and ready to take what is duly ours. We reached an agreement with the government to pay us 10 years severance packages rather than the 20 years we were entitled to, but despite this agreement, it seems the government is being political with everything it is doing.

“Is it until everyone dies of hunger and poverty that the government will do the needful? This was an organisation that we worked for in our entire life,” Ayokunle added.